Shaping America through Immigration and Immigrant laws

September 13, 2013

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3 periods in 20th century US immigration

“classic era” (1901-1930) “long hiatus” (1931-1970) “new regime” (1970-

present)

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Classic Era to Long Hiatus

1882 Chinese Exclusion Act

1907-8 Gentlemen’s Agreement

1917 Immigration Act

1924 National Origins Act

1954-5 “Operation Wetback”

1965 Hart-Celler Act

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New Regime

1943 Chinese Exclusion repealed

1952 Lifted racial restrictions to immigration and

naturalization

1965 Quota system lifted

1980 Refugee Act

1986 IRCA

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Question

How did America or ethnicity look in each of these periods?

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“assimilation”

the process by which a subordinate individual or group takes on the characteristics of the dominant group and is eventually accepted as part of that group. Assimilation is a majority ideology in which A+B+C=A, where A represents the majority group. Assimilation dictates conformity to the dominant group, and tends to devalue alien culture.

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“cultural pluralism”

A+B+C=A+B+C

Where differences and boundaries between cultures are maintained

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Laws affecting immigrants

Immigration laws

Naturalization laws

Alien land laws

Anti-miscegenation laws

Naturalization laws/cases

1790 Naturalization Act

1868 14th Amendment ratified

1870 15th Amendment ratified

1922 The Cable Act (42 Stat. 1021) specified “that any woman citizen who marries an alien ineligible to citizenship shall cease to be a citizen of the U.S.”

1922 Takao Ozawa vs. U.S. (260 U.S. 178)

1923 Bhagat Singh Thind vs. U.S. (261 U.S. 204)

1952 McCarran-Walter Act9

1913, 1920 California Alien Land Laws

Aliens ineligible to citizenship could not own or lease land

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Oyama vs California Fred Oyama, a US citizen,

was 6yo when father purchased land in his name, 1934

CA took land in 1944, claiming violation of CA alien land laws

1948 US Supreme Court decision returns land

Certain provisions of alien land laws violate 14th amendment

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Interracial marriage laws

1850 CA anti-miscegenation law

1933 Roldan v. Los Angeles County

1948 CA overturns anti-miscegenation laws

1967 Loving v. VA

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Visayan Welfare League. Guadalupe, CA. 1938.

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New Regime

1943 Chinese Exclusion repealed

1952 Lifted racial restrictions to immigration and

naturalization

1965 Quota system lifted

1980 Refugee Act

1986 IRCA

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How to immigrate today: aka, get a “green card”

Family sponsored

Employment-based

Immediate relatives

Diversity

Refugee/asylee

See Handout, “How to immigrate”

Table 6

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Race

…formed through “historically situated projects in which human bodies and social structures are represented and organized” (pp. 55-56).

“A racial project is simultaneously an interpretation, representation, or explanation of racial dynamics, and an effort to reorganize and redistribute resources along particular racial lines” (p. 56)

Omi & Winant, “Racial Formation”

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California agriculture

Before 1860, semi-isolated, pastoral region--ranching (cattle hide, tallow)

After 1860, extensive grain cultivation

Fruit and truck farming: corporate, capital-intensive form of agriculture (vs. small family farms) made possible by irrigation revolution

Role of “land monopolization” and “availability of large units of cheap labor”

21Nipomo, CA. 1939. By Dorothea Lange.

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Persons obtaining“legal permanent resident status”

(US Census)

1820s 1830s 1840s 1850s 1860s 1870s 1880s 1890s 1900s 1910s 1920s 1930s 1940s

China 3 8 32 35,933 54,028 133,139 65,797 15,268 19,884 20,916 30,648 5,874 16,072

Japan 138 193 1,583 13,998 139,712 77,125 42,057 2,683 1,557

India 9 38 33 42 50 166 247 102 3.026 3,478 2,076 554 1,692

Philippines

391 4,099

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Race and labor management

1930, CA Dept of Industrial Relations noted growers preferred to employ: “a mixture of laborers of various races, speaking diverse languages, and not accustomed to mingling with each other. The practice [was] intended to avoid labor trouble which might result from having a homogeneous group of laborers of the same race or nationality. Laborers speaking different languages [were] not as likely to arrive at a mutual understanding which would lead to strikes.”

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Japanese immigration

1885-1924 200,000 to Hawaii 180,000 to US mainland

“Push/Pull” factors: Exclusion of Chinese laborers US labor needs (e.g., sugar-beet, link to E. coast

markets) Opening up of Japan 1853 Industrialization and militarization of Japan: farmers

taxed, experience deflation, lose land Japanese govt allows HI planters to recruit labor (1885-

94)

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Characteristics

A select group: had higher literacy rate, more money than European counterparts.

1884 Japanese Consul Takahashi Shinkichi: “It is indeed the ignominious conduct and behavior of indigent Chinese of inferior character … that brought upon the Chinese as a whole the contempt of the Westerners and resulted in the enactment of legislation to exclude them from the country.”

Characteristics, cont’d

Japan promoted more women emigrants: In 1920, 46% in HI and 34.5% on mainland

were women.

Ideal migrant/seasonal farm laborers

Movement into land ownership

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28Saruwatari with pea duster tractor

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FDR’s speech to Congress

“Yesterday, Dec. 7, 1941--a date which will live in world history--the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.”

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FDR’s speech to Congress

“Yesterday, Dec. 7, 1941--a date which will live in infamy--the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.”

WWII and Japanese American internment:

Knowledge and control through visibility

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Life magazine

December 1941

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“THE QUESTION OF JAPANESE-AMERICANS”by W. H. Anderson

Perhaps the most difficult and delicate question that confronts our powers that be is the handling--the safe and proper treatment--of our American-born Japanese, our Japanese-American citizens by the accident of birth. But who are Japanese nevertheless. A viper is nonetheless a viper wherever the egg is hatched. (LA Times, Feb. 2, 1942)

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Executive Order 9066

Feb 19, 1942, FDR signs EO 9066

Suspends civil rights of US citizens by authorizing the “evacuation” of nearly 120,000 persons of Japanese ancestry

60% of internees are US born citizens (“Nisei” v. “Issei”)

WRA 1943 film,

“Japanese Relocation”

http://www.archive.org/details/

Japanese1943• Seeming transparency

of federal government• Seeming normalcy of

mass incarceration of a single ethnic group

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Title:

Henry Mitarai, age 36, successful large-scale farm operator with his

family on their ranch about six weeks before evacuation. This

family, along with other families of Japanese ancestry, will spend the duration at War Relocation

Authority centers.

Photographer: Lange, Dorothea -- Mountain View, California.

3/30/42

Contributing Institution:

The Bancroft Library. University of California, Berkeley.

http://content.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft1z09n73j/?brand=calisphere

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48Lange

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Title: Japanese American woman and child, internees

Creator/Contributor: Ishigo, Estelle, Artist

Date: between 1942 and 1945

Contributing Institution:

Dept of Special Collections/UCLA Library, A1713 Charles E. Young

Research Library, 405 Hilgard Ave, Box 951575, Los Angeles, CA 90095-

1575;

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Title: Send Off Husband at Jerome Camp

Creator/Contributor: Sugimoto, Henry

Date: 1943

Format:

painting oil on canvas Denson, Ark.

Inscription:

Signed in medium, bottom left corner: H. Sugimoto, 1943. Written on back: Documentary/"Send Off

Husband" at Jerome Camp/by Henry Sugimoto/1942

Collection:

Henry Sugimoto Collection A Life Transformed 1941-1945

Contributing Institution:

Japanese American National Museum (Los Angeles, Calif.)

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Sources for photographs, images

http://www.calisphere.universityofcalifornia.edu/jarda/

http://www.pacificcitizen.org/site/NEWS/tabid/54/selectedmoduleid/373/ArticleID/175/Default.aspx?title=Seeing_Japanese_American_History_Through_Toyo%27s_Lens

http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/anseladams/index.html

http://www.oac.cdlib.org/view?docId=tf596nb4h0;query=;style=oac4

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